Canadian Heritage Committee on May 4th, 2015

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Yes, I think not only does your history, but so does your organization. We don't know it exists; I think it's a good thing that it exists.

I have two questions. One, do you have any thoughts on how we can bring dance or the history of dance to the consciousness of the rest of us? And two, why do you think we need a separate organization or institution for the history of dance rather than just including it in history, or the history of culture, or the history of art?

[Amy Bowring]

Okay, sorry, your first question was what?

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

The first question is, how can we bring the consciousness of the history of dance to the rest of us?

[Amy Bowring]

I could use a bigger staff, a bigger facility, and a bigger marketing team. We've been around for almost 30 years and we're still a very well-kept secret because we are a small organization even though we are the main organization looking after the country's dance heritage. We were founded by two ex-National Ballet dancers.

Then your second question was what?

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

The second question is, why do you think we need a separate organization?

[Amy Bowring]

Dance Collection Danse started as a reconstruction project between 1983 and 1986, and during the research that led to the reconstruction project in 1986—I'm talking about the reconstruction of dances from the pre-Canada Council era—the researchers kept coming back to Toronto from all across the country with shopping bags full of films, scrapbooks, photos, and clippings—everything.

When the research project and the reconstruction was finished, our founders went to provincial archives, national archives, and even the city archives, and all of them said, “It's not in our mandate to collect this, we cannot take it” and so they said, “Okay, we'll do it” and they created Dance Collection Danse to do exactly that.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's surprising to hear, but—

[Amy Bowring]

Well, archives are, you know, overloaded as it is, right? Everybody is years behind in cataloguing, sorting, and so on, so it gets to a point where the heads of archives have to just say, “We can't handle it, we can't take it”.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

So if it weren't for your organization, these things might just be staying in grocery bags in someone's closet.

[Amy Bowring]

Or dumpsters, or incinerators.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

Mr. Dalrymple, are there national schools, even if it's not an official government organization, for genres other than ballet?

[John Dalrymple]

Sure. In the dance sector there are really the National Ballet School, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, the L'École Supérieure de Ballet in Montreal, and the the School of Alberta Ballet. And yeah, they all do focus on ballet because of the rigours of training that are required to dance that particular art form. Kids have to start very young and they have to dance quite a bit to be able to do it at the professional level.

There are many, many professional dance schools. A lot of dance companies will also run a school as an adjunct to what they do as a presenting organization, and there are—I don't know how many—hundreds and hundreds of those. So there are professional-calibre teachers teaching dance for people who would be professional. Certainly post-secondary institution's fine art departments have professional dance training as well, in a variety of styles.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

How much do the big ballet schools focus on genres other than ballet?

[John Dalrymple]

It would depend on the school. Certainly at Canada's National Ballet School, we know it's important that the students are exposed to a variety of dance styles. About 20 years ago we had Peggy Baker, who's a really significant modern dancer and a real legend in Canada, become our artist in residence, so the senior school students get classes with Peggy from grades 10, 11, and 12 to learn contemporary dance movements. We also have Indian and South Asian dance and we've got folk dancing, so they do get exposed to a variety of dance styles. I would imagine that would be consistent with the other large schools, just so that the students are prepared for the diverse range of choreography that's in companies today.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I haven't done any studies on it, but I imagine, if my household is indicative of anything, shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance have increased the popularity of dance—at least watching dance. My kids and I are just blown away at the calibre of people who aren't even professionals yet on So You Think You Can Dance, and by how powerful and impactful good dance is.

I imagine that this type of exposure increases the popularity of dance. Is there more that we can do to market dance? That would probably increase people's ability to make a living dancing. You talked about making money and then not making money and then making money again. It depends a bit on the market. If the market is really into dance, they're going to pay for dance. With my seeing these shows, if a good dance troop came to town I'd be more willing, just because it's in my consciousness now, to take my kids and pay for tickets to see them.

Is there a way that we can do this marketing to help raise the popularity, and therefore the income, of professional dancers?

Go ahead.

[Amy Bowring]

Show like So You Think You Can Dance certainly have done a lot to raise the popularity of dance. In fact, we haven't experienced that same popularity since the golden age of variety television on CBC in the 1950s.

There are a number of filmmakers, such as Moze Mossanen and Rhombus Media, doing a lot of dance productions, but they're now having a terrible time getting productions made and aired because of cutbacks at the CBC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right. Thank you very much.

We're now going to move to Mr. Stewart for five minutes, and that's going to be it.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thanks to all the witnesses for coming today. It's a great first day to this study.

We've had three studies we're doing. We've just finished one on the music industry. We're just going through one on film, and now one on dance. It's interesting to hear the perspectives of different players in all those industries.

I noticed with the music—I used to be a musician—that the musicians had a sense at one point that they could be millionaire rock stars, but now they have to adjust because of piracy. Now singer-songwriters think that they can't make a living off of this anymore, or that they have to move to another country in order to do it, such as the United States.

In the movie industry there is a kind of acceptance that you go the U.S. to do big blockbusters, or you stay here and do independent films, or some kind of combination.

I'm trying to get a sense of the dance industry and how you see your careers as dancers, how dancers see their careers, and how government can try to enhance that in order to preserve our culture, so we don't lose.... I'm trying to get a flavour of somebody who's entering this industry as a director or dancer, and how they would see themselves going through until they're seniors and retired.

I'll start with Ms. Bowring, and then over to Mr. Dalrymple.

[Amy Bowring]

That's a big one. Nobody goes into it for the money, that's for sure. You go into it for the love, and you know that it's going to be hard to make your way. Some people are going to be big and international like Crystal Pite or Jean-Pierre Perreault, and others are going to struggle through their entire careers.

When you ask how government can help, it comes down to subsidy. I keep going back to that, I know, but it's true. We saw it was such a landmark event for the Canada Council to be funded. It made such a huge shift in how art was made and presented in Canada. It just proved that a government that values art and can subsidize it is where the help is.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay, we may come back to that in a second.

Mr. Dalrymple, do you have anything to add on that point?

[John Dalrymple]

At the ballet school, we're looking at maybe 20 kids a year who are graduating. For the last five years we've had a 100% job placement rate, which is good for a professional training school. A big part of it, though, is to make sure that the academic education they get is also of a high calibre. For us, it's somewhat easier. Our academic school is run by the ballet school, so there's an ability to integrate the arts into what the kids are exposed to on a daily basis, and that helps them to excel academically as well as artistically.

I think the opportunity to have more of an arts presence at the public school level would be significant in helping kids in that regard, because a dance career is not going to take you until you're a senior citizen; you're going to have to do something else. Some can be choreographers or artistic directors, and there's are a number of our graduates who have been able to do that quite successfully. Others become neuroscientists or marine biologists or lawyers, and they need to be able to go back to school to train.

What we've found is that dance has given them a particular amount of focus, time management skills, and discipline, which has seen them excel as graduates in other programs.

We're having a symposium for our alumni next year. We'll have all of our alumni, even those who can't be present beamed in digitally, to talk about that. We would be able to provide a report on forty to fifty years of graduates of the ballet school and how their careers have turned out. If that's of interest, we'd be happy to share that.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Sure, thank you.

It's perhaps more like the Olympic athlete model that you were describing in your presentation. That's useful for me to know.

The second thing I'm interested in is on comparisons. You're not just focusing on Canada, of course; you've talked to international artists.

I'm wondering if people coming from other countries have a different experience. I'm sure the Canada Council was started in reaction to what was happening internationally. I'm wondering if there are other things internationally that we should be trying to mimic in order to stay competitive with other countries that are perhaps supporting their dance more rigorously.

Mr. Lemay can maybe jump in on that one as well.

Mr. Dalrymple, you look like you're ready to jump in there, so maybe you can start.

[John Dalrymple]

I would just say that the model in Europe, for instance, where dance is valued and a dancer could have tenure after five years with a company, is that a dancer gets paid for the rest of his or her life. The value of the art form is so high there. That is amazing, but you also see the state of those economies there, and the ability to maintain that over the long term is perhaps in jeopardy.

In the United States, there is less government support, but their organizations are struggling with many of the same things that we are. I think the issue that rings very true in the United States, when we talk to our colleagues, is that priority of demonstrating the relevance as broadly as we can as a way of building audiences for the future.

I find in Europe that they're not worried about that yet, but I don't believe they have a terrific secondary plan if complete government subsidy is not sustainable over the long term.

In other parts of the world, such as Japan and China, there are significant investments happening in dance, but their economies are quite different in terms of the scale.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you to our witnesses. If you have any further contributions to our study, please get them to us in writing.

On that note, we will briefly suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

We're going to call meeting number 44 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage back to order.

In our second hour today, from the Canadian Dance Assembly, we have Kate Cornell, the executive director. From the Regroupement québécois de la danse, we have Harold Rhéaume, president, and Lorraine Hébert, executive director. From the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, we have Amanda Hancox here with us. She's the executive director of the national office. Parise Mongrain, who is also here, is the director of the Quebec office. By video conference from Toronto, we have Coralee McLaren, a former dancer.

Each of the three groups will have up to eight minutes each.

We will start with Kate Cornell from the Canadian Dance Assembly.

You have the floor.